Jumping right in again … We have covered a different kind of work week (219) then 7 weeks of vacation (220) then the ‘3 Things A Day’ mantra (221) and then last week we talked about the 80/20 rules which are possibly both the most known while also being most ignored bit of business insight going (222.)
In blog 222 I pointed out the obvious which is that if someone or something took away the bottom 80% of your clients you’d only lose 20% of your revenue while creating 80% more time.
Figure. It. Out.
Spend even more time with your top clients doing things for them that they appreciate, that fall outside of what you are expected to do, and you’ll be making 120% of what you used to make with a much smaller client base.
Go read the last blogs and do the simple homework assignments. Then sign up in our community (seriousshift.com) and you can talk to me in there, I’d be happy to help you thrash this out.
Here is the secret I promised, and this literally changed my life.
Figure out the 3 things you do that make you all your money.
Stop doing everything else. No kidding, I wrestled with this and the moment I stopped doing literally everything that wasn’t the top three things two things happened.
I got more done and made more money, and to my surprise and slight disappointment, nobody ever asked about the other stuff I stopped doing, which means they never cared to begin with. That hurt, but only for a second. I was investing my time into absolutely nothing of value, I let my ego feel it for 5 minutes and then I probably went skiing!
Trust me. Stop the non-essential stuff and wait. Nobody will miss it.
Now consider the few activities that pay you 80% of your revenue and ask yourself these questions.
This is the secret.
How can I make this easier on me? Do you need better tech, better scheduling? You have just done the 80/20 activity segmentation, you should be able to do even more …
How can I make this better for my client? When considering these three activities that are so critical to you determine where your client or potential client has to sacrifice. From their side, what isn’t so great and how can you improve it?
Lastly, consider how you can make this a little surprising and enjoyable for your client. Not more efficient, more surprising, more enjoyable and memorable.
For example: Zoom meetings.
How did I make it better for me? Better equipment, lighting and tech. Accepted that zoom is here to stay and created a studio. Multiple screens, lights etc. I am, at long last, at the point where I more or less walk into a tv studio.
How did I decrease sacrifice for my audience? As stated above I created a much better viewing experience, I use ‘breakout’ rooms differently, I create mini rooms within my presentation where I bundle attendees up in 2s and 3s and give them something to discuss. They get to meet other people, share and learn and this is before I have said anything!
I send out an agenda ahead of time. I send short videos out ahead of time to prep my client and build some anticipation. I have zoom connected to Calendly so it’s easy to schedule and I always block more time than we need.
How do I make it a little surprising and fun? I take my shirt off.
No, I don’t, but I do log in early and share my screen and I make sure to have a video playing so that when my guests arrive, instead of seeing “Dennis will be right with you” they instead see something surprising. This could be something on the Experience Economy, a cool story about some interesting business innovation or it might be as simple as concert footage, most likely of a Canadian artist that my mostly American audience hasn’t heard of.
The three things that pay me the most money are …
Presenting in person or virtual.
Connecting with and sharing within our online community, serious shift dot com.
Write stuff.
That’s it. A million years ago I did 15 things and thought that all of them were critically important.
I was wrong.